


Amber

by Shinybug



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinybug/pseuds/Shinybug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like having him back, but it's the next best thing to resurrection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amber

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This was written years and years ago, and betaed by the wonderful Alexia. It still mostly works with canon.
> 
> Disclaimer: This work of fiction was produced for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit. Anything you recognize - I don’t own. Everything else is mine.

*~*~*~*

Harry finds the portrait in the attic, beneath a Turkish rug that twitches under a layer of dust when he touches it. Some flicker of magic is left, a faint trace of life, a hope of flight still caught within the worn red weave.

 _\--Beg pardon,_ the voice mutters, muffled, and Harry thinks for a moment that the rug is addressing him.

 _\--If you don't mind terribly, could you..._

And Harry lifts the corner of the rug and finds Sirius Black.

Dark hair in his eyes like blown sea grass, broad shoulders bearing no weight of years or guilt, wide mouth curving in satisfaction as the weak sunlight falls from the attic window upon his canvas.

 _\--Thanks ever so,_ Sirius says on a sigh that ruffles his hair and in the back of Harry's mind a tattered black veil is parting.

Harry flips the rug off the frame and dust billows around his ankles. He drops to his knees, touching the frame but not the canvas. "Sirius," he chokes out, but it sounds more like Parseltongue than a name.

 _\--You wouldn't believe how long I've been under that rug, my friend. Bloody boring way to spend eternity, I don't mind telling you. I'd almost given up hope entirely, until you came along. The house elves have been skiving off again. If I could I'd have given that damned Kreacher clothes years ago._

"Don't think I haven't tried," Harry mumbles indistinctly, his fingers gripping the frame hard. Sirius is no older than he himself, and he is an ill fit for the ordered austerity of his aristocratic setting. He lounges against one arm of his Louis XVI chair, his robes open at the collar, his smile crooked and genuine, his dark eyes merry. Only the line of his nose, aquiline and narrow, and the tilted angle of his jaw betray him as a pureblood.

 _\--Say, since you're here, give us a quick clean, would you? And maybe prop us up against that wall there._

With trembling fingers and wand Harry applies a Scourgify charm and sets the portrait up at an angle that allows Sirius to see the sun. For a moment the minute brushstrokes of Sirius' eyes crinkle at the edges as he basks, running fingers back through his hair and stretching. Harry swallows around the constriction in his throat, already thinking of where he'll move the portrait to. His bedroom maybe, or the sitting room downstairs.

It's not like having him back, but it's the next best thing to resurrection.

 _\--So who would you be, then? You seem to know me. Are we friends?_

"I'm Harry. And yeah, we were...we're friends," Harry says, jealousy poking him in the ribs because his father got to see this amiable, casual elegance that was Sirius before Azkaban, while Harry had only a wasted husk of a man and now this shadow, this echo of a moment caught like an insect in amber.

Sirius cocks his head slightly in perusal. _\--It's a bit dark up here, but you look like someone I know. I suppose you might be related then. Well, I guess we all are, aren't we? Not enough Blood to go around, my mother would say._

Harry nods, not trusting his tongue to speak beneath the weight of all the things he could have had but didn't.

 _\--You'll have to forgive me, I'm a bit out of touch. The other portraits and I, well...we haven't been on speaking terms for years. I imagine you've met my mother. This portrait was her idea, in fact, back before she lost hope entirely. I'd much rather have posed on a Quidditch field or at least in something with a more comfortable chair, or color scheme other than Pureblood Monochromatic, for Merlin's sake, but she never did approve of a single idea I ever had._

"Yeah, your mum's a bit off the deeper end of the pool, isn't she?" Harry laughs a bit, easing into this Sirius' casual conversational style like slipping into foreign waters.

 _\--Mate, you've no idea,_ Sirius replies. _Everytime I step out of my frame it's 'Blood traitor' this and 'shameful spawn of my loins' that. I wish someone'd pry the old bitch off the wall. Don't suppose you could..._

"Tried. Remus even set her on fire once, but it didn't do much more than singe her frame."

Sirius grins from ear to ear. _\--Lupin, that old mangy mutt. Is he still prowling around? That does my heart good to know. Tell him to visit sometime when he's free._

"I will. I'll move you someplace better, too, so you won't have to be alone anymore." And I won't either, Harry thinks to himself, feeling the vague warmth of the afternoon sun touch something deeper inside him for the first time in years.

Sirius shakes his sleek dark mane out of his eyes with a laugh that sounds like waves breaking. _\--Much obliged, mate, though I'm not alone. It might have been dull as water crackers under that damned rug with no scenery, but at least the company's been good._

Frowning, Harry peers into the dark edges of the portrait. "Have you got someone else there with you?"

 _\--And glad of it too, I don't mind saying. If you've got to be stuck in a portrait with someone, my friend, it ought to be someone you can pass the time with, if you know what I mean. Love makes forever seem shorter, somehow. Though I'd give Wormtail's last whisker for a bed over this monstrosity,_ Sirius comments with a lazily arched eyebrow, tapping a long finger on the arm of the chair.

Harry smiles, surprised. "I had no idea, er, that is, you seemed alone in there..."

 _\--Catching up with my Great-Aunt Iphegenia, that one is. The others don't mind talking to him so much as they do me. I suppose he'll be along shortly when he hears I've got a visitor._

Harry's smile falters a bit.

 _\--That was the one concession my old mum made to get me to sit for this. It had to be with Potter or nothing at all, I said._

Harry's jaw falls slack, his smile slipping away like winter sunlight, and he feels cold in its wake.

Sirius turns to look at something off to the left of the frame that Harry can't see, and unfolds his long limbs from the chair, canines flashing white as he grins. _\--Oy, Prongs! C'mere, mate. We get to come out from under the rug now, we've been rescued from exile._

And James Potter enters the frame, slinging an arm over Sirius' shoulder with easy familiarity. Sirius reaches up to link his fingers with James'.

 _\--James, meet Harry, our savior._

His throat won't swallow properly, but Harry gamely nods at his father, who extends his free hand as if to offer to shake, then pulls it back with a laugh that sounds so much like Harry's own when he hits the back of the canvas.

 _\--Pleasure. You know, I think there's more than a passing resemblance between us, don't you?_ James addresses Sirius with this last, who nods in agreement, his thumb rubbing over James' knuckles like he's mapping mountains.

"Well," Harry blurts, forestalling any further explanation. "I suppose I'll just go clear a space on the wall for you, then."

James' eyes light up behind his round frames. _\--If it's not too much trouble, there's a spot on the second landing we've always had our eyes on. Only thing, this one's cousin Bellatrix is already there. Bloody bint gets the best view in the house, out the window to the back garden._

 _\--Now there's one I wouldn't mind setting on fire,_ Sirius interjects with a sneer.

Everything tilts just a little around the edges of Harry's eyes, just enough to let him know that whatever shapes and colors he'd used to define his world were subtly wrong, like a camera perpetually out of focus, and he gropes mentally like one suddenly blinded. "I'll do my best," he promises, trying to turn his rictus grimace into more of a smile.

As he stumbles to his feet he sees Sirius out of the corner of his eye, leaning in to press his aristocratic nose against the shadowed space behind Harry's father's ear. James turns into his embrace as Harry finds the doorway with both hands.

 _\--This is the best day I can remember having,_ Sirius whispers behind him. _It's good to see your face in the light again._

Harry holds one hand to his belly, over his navel as though his insides might come spilling out through a splitting seam, and closes the attic door on their words.

He passes Bellatrix on the second landing without looking at her, but he feels her painted black eyes following him down the stairs, and her laughter, deep like iron bells, trails after.

~end~


End file.
